The history of Nordic seminars in seismology dates back to 1969. Typically, seminars have taken place in turns in all five Nordic countries. This time the seminar was organized by University of Uppsala, and Swedish Defence Research Agency FOI. The Eklundshof conference facility south of Uppsala city center served as the location of the seminar from October 14 to 16, 2019.
Because of the 50th anniversary of the seminar, many of the presentations covered the history of Nordic seismological co-operation. In addition to purely scientific goals, the advancement of Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban (CTBT) has played a major role in the development of seismic networks and monitoring systems during the last decades. Historical aspects were presented by Ola Dahlman, Svein Mykkeltveit, Leif Persson, Tormod Kvaerna and Hilmar Bungum. The talks dealt with a large number of events observed by Nordic seismic equipment, from Pacific nuclear tests to large earthquakes and the Kursk explosion.
Experts of the Institute of Seismology gave several talks and one poster presentation in the seminar. Using a temporary network to monitor drilling activities of Espoo district heat plant construction site, information and recommendations to authorities about geothermal energy, new online services of institute, and development of daily seismic analysis were topics of the talks. Tommi Vuorinen also chaired the session on natural and induced seismicity, and structure of the lithosphere.
The participants of the seminar had an opportunity to visit the data center of the Swedish National Seismic Network at University of Uppsala. Another possibility at the same time was attendance to the EPOS (European Plate Observing System) program. In this session Annakaisa Korja, director of the Department of Geosciences and Geography, presented a plan of establishment and funding a Nordic Research Infrastructure hub, coordinated by the Institute of Seismology. After these topics, the seminar was successfully finished, and Peter Viss welcomed the participants to the next seminar which will be arranged in Denmark in autumn 2020.